Are you running out of streaming shows to binge during quarantine? No worries, John Favreau and The Mandalorian have you covered - the pandemic didn't halt production and the show's second season is still scheduled to release on time.
Granted, "on time" means October, so there's still a bit of a wait, but Favreau explained during a digital panel at the ATX Television Festival this weekend that they'd already completed filming before all of the restrictions began. “We were lucky enough to have finished photography before the lockdown,” Favreau said. “Thanks to how technology-forward Lucasfilm and ILM are, we have been able to do all of our visual effects and editing and post-production remotely through systems that had been set up by those companies for us.”
The Mandalorian is a Disney+ original series that debuted its first episode on November 12, 2019. The first season's eight episodes follow the story of a Mandalorian mercenary (played by Pedro Pascal) who finds himself saddled with an unusual request...and an even more unusual package. According to the Disney+ synopsis, the show is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order, where we follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy, far from the authority of the New Republic.
A behind the scenes documentary for the show on Disney+ revealed that the first season was pre-visualized ahead of time, allowing the effects team to animate sequences and scenes before the cameras ever rolled on live actors. Presumably, the second season worked similarly, which is why everything is still scheduled for an October release.
Lead actor Pedro Pascal is expected to be joined by returning cast members Giancarlo Esposito, Gina Carano, and Carl Weathers. As far as what new characters we can expect, there have been some reports that Rosario Dawson will appear as Ahsoka Tano (Star Wars' The Clone Wars series) and Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett in the prequels) is set to play the infamous bounty hunter, Boba Fett. In addition, Timothy Olyphant and Michael Biehn have joined the cast. Favreau didn’t address any of the reports directly during the panel, but teased the fresh faces coming to the show - so we'll just have to wait to find out.
Favreau describes his experience writing and working with the show so far as being "Ffun and fulfilling," and that he hopes "everyone else is having as much seeing it as we are having making it." The Mandalorian season 2 will premiere on Disney+ sometime in October of this year. Are you looking forward to it? Share your thoughts with us!